In the context of display technologies, stereoscopic 3D television (3DTV) monitors and display devices exist and are continuing to be developed for viewing stereoscopic video data: whether the stereoscopic video data has been produced directly from a scene, using for instance two cameras, or by conversion of pre-existing two-dimensional video content. Two stereoscopic 3D monitor technologies are available; namely, passive monitor technology and active monitor technology. Both create an illusion of depth using a two-dimensional (2D) screen and special wearable glasses.
The passive monitor technology displays left-eye and right-eye images simultaneously on alternating lines of a monitor, and polarizes these alternating lines differently. Therefore the left-eye and right-eye images are polarized differently. Passive glasses, worn by the users, allow images polarized in a first manner to be viewed by the user's left eye and images polarized in a second manner to be viewed by the user's right eye. Thus, only the left-eye images reach the user's left eye and only the right-eye images reach the user's right eye. In other words, the passive glasses filter the light so that the left-eye images are not viewed by the user's right eye and, conversely, the right-eye images are not viewed by the user's left eye.
The active monitor technology alternates left-eye and right-eye images sequentially in time. The active glasses, worn by the users, alternately allow images to be viewed by the user's left eye and images to be viewed by the user's right eye, using a shuttering mechanism synchronized with the monitor. Thus, when a left-eye image is displayed at a first instant on the active monitor, only the user's left eye can see it and when a right-eye image is displayed at a second instant on the active monitor, only the user's right eye can see it. The shuttering mechanism synchronized with the monitor may be based on the use of liquid-crystal-shutter (LCS) 3D glasses. The synchronization between the active glasses and the monitor may be based on an infrared link. The active monitor technology is therefore said to be “active” compared to the passive monitor technology not because the monitor itself would be more “active” but because the active monitor technology is based on the use of active glasses including a shuttering mechanism.
It is desirable to provide methods and systems to improve the quality of the stereoscopic video content viewed on stereoscopic 3D televisions and other display devices, and it is desirable to do so while efficiently using the storage and network resources necessary to store and transfer stereoscopic video data.